Atlassian to Abandon On-Prem Perpetual Products
Atlassian once offered its wares in three forms. The preferred option is from the cloud, in conventional software-as-a-service style that sees Atlassian manage software and infrastructure. Users can also buy datacenter licenses that renew annually and require self-management. Until 2021, you could also get server products under a perpetual license, but users who wanted support and upgrades need to pay.
In 2020 Atlassian decided it wanted to be a cloud company. It argued that doing so would deliver a better experience for customers, and flagged deprecation of its server products.
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Owners of server licenses looking for an on-prem migration path therefore faced the prospect of paying for 500 seats – which costs at least a five figure sum each year – even if they have many fewer users.
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Another source of concern is that Atlassian’s development plans are now very much cloud first – as typified by last week’s acquisition of asynchronous video outfit Loom and informing users it will only be integrated with cloud products. Holders of datacenter licenses won’t get the apparently revolutionary new embedded video features.
It sounds like they are not completely abandoning on-premises licenses. But they are getting rid of smaller and medium sizes—you have to buy at least 500 seats—and you have to switch to a subscription.
Last year I was second guessing myself if migration to Gitlab EE from Jira, Bitbucket and Jenkins would be worth it, as it was a massive shift for my org. Maybe purchasing a DC version of Atlassian products would be a better alternative, but after short look into invoices and licensing it was decided to go forward with Gitlab.
Previously:
